Arms of Promise by Crystal Walton

Author:Crystal Walton [Walton, Crystal]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780986288272
Amazon: 0986288276
Publisher: Impact Editions, LLC
Published: 2016-08-12T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Boundaries

Evan pulled into the gala hotel’s lot. If Marissa was with one of the guys she’d been leading on all night, they probably hadn’t left their parking space yet.

He choked back an image he didn’t want to think about and braced himself for her impending wrath. The rain might’ve stopped, but he was about to unleash a whole other storm by interrupting.

Marissa didn’t need a babysitter. But they’d traveled here together, and while she was on his watch, he’d look out for her.

Anna turned from the window and lowered her ice compress.

Evan raised it back up to her mouth. “Keep pressure on it for another ten minutes.” He unbuckled his seat belt and opened the door. “Stay here. I’ll be right back.” She didn’t need to see this confrontation.

This late, the parking lot had thinned out to only a few dozen cars. He approached the only blue Lexus. Tinted windows. Figured. He banged on the passenger window in the back and opened the door. “Marissa, let’s go.”

Two pairs of feet stretched out from the seat. Evan’s lip curled. Getting close to a lead on a story was one way of putting it.

The guy fell onto the floorboard and hustled to button his shirt while Marissa’s biting glare skewered Evan from the backseat.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sparing you from regretting a bad hangover more than you already will. You’re loaded. You need to go home.”

She shimmied out of the car and resituated her dress. “I don’t need to do anything. I’m a grown woman. I’ll do what I like.”

Jaw twitching, Evan pointed at the loser still crouched on the floorboard. “I’m not leaving you here with some guy who’s too plastered to know he shouldn’t get behind the wheel.”

“Just because you have a soldier complex doesn’t mean everyone else needs you to protect them.”

The anger he’d anticipated sank straight to his gut. He swallowed the sting. “You’re a lousy drunk, Marissa. Anyone ever tell you that?”

“And you’re a lousy . . . boyfriend,” she sputtered, as though unable to come up with a better insult. Her cutting gaze skimmed past him. “You certainly didn’t waste any time moving on.”

Anna shrank behind another car when he turned. Why did he ever bother telling her to stay put?

He prodded Marissa forward.

She dragged her heels. “What are you doing?”

“Hailing you a cab.” At the curb, Evan whistled through his fingers, and a taxi whipped out of traffic. Sometimes, he loved Chicago. He paid the driver. “The Hilton on South Michigan. No matter what she says.”

The street’s Christmas lights shimmered over Marissa’s irate expression from the backseat.

Without wasting another word, Evan closed her door and tapped the cab’s trunk. A gust of exhaust clouded him as the taxi merged back into the fast-paced traffic.

Evan turned to apologize to Anna, but she must’ve gone back to the car. Hard to blame her. She’d probably heard enough. He certainly had.

Still fuming, he sank into the driver’s seat but couldn’t bring himself to face her yet. Instead, he zipped the car out of the lot and punched the gas.

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